


Peace (Through Tyranny) on Earth

by deceptigeek



Series: Christmas giftfics 2019... Now in August! [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Carol Singing, Crack, DJD - Freeform, Decepticon Justice Division - Freeform, Delphi Clinic era, Gen, Group Bonding, Snark, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deceptigeek/pseuds/deceptigeek
Summary: The DJD have their own way of doing Christmas, no matter the universe.
Series: Christmas giftfics 2019... Now in August! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591342
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for rheic-arts on tumblr - she asked for DJD shenanigans, and I was happy to oblige!

At some point towards the tail end of this year, Nickel had taken up knitting. 

Tarn wasn’t sure when exactly she’d started; once he finally noticed, and enquired as to its purpose, he received a vague answer about passing time while waiting for them all to get back from a job. Which made perfect sense on the surface, until one thought about it, and recalled how much time the diminutive woman was capable of devoting to complaints about  _ how much time _ she had to spend on cleanup after every assignment. 

Tarn had not thought about it. He’d been distracted almost immediately by Kaon’s best efforts to grab his attention, and it was hard to think about anything  _ but  _ Kaon when he was hanging off your arm and shouting. 

In fairness, the Pet  _ had _ swallowed a bauble.

Now, in Tarn’s head at least, the Pet and his utter lack of self-preservation was entirely to blame for what sat before him: Nickel, menacingly brandishing an indistinct lump of wooly stitches. Something that might have been a sleeve flopped out of the general mass, and Tarn took a step backwards in horror. 

“ _ No. _ ” 

“Er,  _ yes. _ ” said Nickel, arching an eyebrow. “Everyone else is wearing theirs! I thought you were all about team unity and bonding activities, and that kinda crap?” 

“I’d hardly class this as a bonding activity,” Tarn tried weakly. “I… I mean look! Everybody’s sitting around doing their own thing! Not a bit of teamwork to be seen!”

“Our sweaters,” announced Kaon grandly, as he struck a pose in his swivel chair, “are representative of Nickel’s love, and her willingness to kick our asses into gear - which binds us together like glue, even when we’re apart.” 

“Suck up all you like, Sparky, I’m still not giving you the defibrillator to mess around with.”

“Aw.”

The thing was, Tarn wasn’t sure how much Kaon had been exaggerating. Everyone else seemed delighted with their gifts; each one decorated in a repeating pattern of tiny symbols that seemed innocuous enough from far away but, much like the people wearing them, started to look rather unsettling the closer you got. 

Kaon, who’d gone back to hunching over at his desk with a slightly mulish expression, sported appliqued decorations: lightning bolts cut from metallic fabric, and little pom-pom snowmen with X’s sewn over their eyes. Occasionally, while listening particularly hard to an audio sample, his fingers would creep upwards to tweak one of the white puffballs, plucking at his arm or his chest in concentration. He’d decapitated three snowmen already, but if Nickel had noticed the destruction of her handiwork, she hadn’t seen fit to call it out. 

She’d knitted herself a bespoke headscarf, in her signature teal and white. One might be forgiven for taking the pattern to be a series of simple crosses, bars and loops - if one weren’t familiar enough with various (potentially lethal) medical instruments to be able to recognise their abstract depictions. Tarn almost wanted to ask why she got away with a nice, sensible non-festive design… but he’d seen her skill with the real versions of those implements. Wisdom told him he’d better not risk it.

On the sofa sat Helex and Tesarus, engaged in one of their usual Wednesday afternoon videogame standoffs. Of the jumpers, Tess’ was perhaps the best at passing for normal; even from fairly close up, you might’ve mistaken the wicked knives, alternating with equally pointy Christmas trees, for icicles. Meanwhile, Tarn suspected that Helex might’ve put in a custom request with Nickel. He certainly looked smug enough, as he sat mashing buttons, wreathed in chains of gingerbread men interspersed with brains embroidered in thick, curly pink wool. 

Vos had curled himself onto the arm of the sofa and was watching the tournament’s progress like a cat, almost unblinking. He  _ did _ have icicles on his jumper - and also tiny, painstakingly picked-out sniper rifles. Tarn had to admit that for a novice, he was impressed with Nickel’s handiwork. 

She seemed to have deliberately given herself an easier job with the Pet, who hadn’t escaped her attentions and was looking decidedly forlorn about it. He sat at Tarn’s feet and gazed pleadingly upwards; as if Tarn could have even attempted to remove the pet sweater, decorated in anatomically accurate bones, without losing a limb to Nickel’s temper. 

“I’m sorry,” he told it. “But we’re in the hands of a dictator.”

“If that’s what you think of me, why haven’t you bowed to my will and put your sweater on already?!”

“Call it a personal protest.”

“Ingratitude, is what I call it,” grumbled Nickel. When Tarn merely folded his arms and attempted a hard stare, she made a wordless noise of aggravation and flung the bundle of knitting at his chest. 

Instinctively, Tarn moved to catch it. Nickel wheeled herself away, grumbling about better things she could have done with her time, but he barely registered her words. As the sweater had landed in his arms, it’d fallen out of the haphazard way Nickel had folded it, making its pattern clear to Tarn for the first time. 

“Is this… ?” 

Shining silver against purple wool, strings of music notes wove between a pattern of snowflakes. 

Notes whose order Tarn recognised better than any other piece he knew. 

"You embroidered the Empyrean Suite on a Christmas jumper." 

"And a load of bloody hard work it was, too," said Nickel from across the room - though the frustration seemed to have bled out of her voice. "Almost as bad as Vos's." 

At her words, Vos scrambled over the back of the sofa to stare at her, frowning in reproach. Nickel stuck her tongue out in response, then turned back to Tarn with a knowing smirk. 

Which Tarn did not see - too busy tracing his fingers over the glittering staves, quavers, and semibreves, almost as if he could hear the music by touch. It was a moving gesture, to be sure, but… 

“Well? You gonna put it on, or what?” 

“I”- 

“Oh, come off it!” Helex exclaimed, spreading his arms in protest and accidentally flinging away his controller. It hit Vos in the leg, who yelped and leapt fully off the couch, saved from landing in Nickel’s lap only by his innate, catlike grace. “You really think it’s beneath your dignity or something? My sweater’s got fluffy brains on it, for fuck’s sake!”

“Brains which you asked for specially,” Kaon muttered, still bent over his work. When Helex flipped him off in reply, he responded in kind without missing a beat. 

Tarn opened his mouth, preparing to deliver a lecture - but was interrupted by a sudden rush of movement from the sofa. Somehow managing a put-upon sigh even as he barrelled forwards, Tesarus seized Tarn around the middle, pinning both arms with one of his own and wrenching the sweater out of Tarn’s grip with his free hand. 

“If it matters so much to you, here,” he called to Helex, tossing the jumper over. “Gimme a hand getting it on him.” 

Rapidly overcoming his initial shock, Tarn tried to struggle; unable to wrench himself out of Tess’ hold, he grumbled and settled for stamping on the larger man’s feet. 

Tess was wearing very heavy-duty boots. Before Tarn even had time to curse this development, his vision was obscured by a cascade of scratchy wool. 

“I -!  _ Stop _ \- this is insubordination!” 

“Naw,” sing-songed Kaon, “it’s  _ team building _ .” 

Nickel hummed contemplatively. “They  _ are _ working together to accomplish a common goal.” 

Somewhere off to the side of the room, Vos cackled. 

The wide grin accompanying that cackle was revealed to Tarn in the next moment, as Helex yanked the sweater down over his chest. And his arms, which Tess had managed to keep pinned to his sides. Restrained, seething, and his hair no doubt an absolute mess, Tarn was manhandled over to the sofa and shoved down to sit in the middle, before Helex and Tesarus closed in on either side and resumed their video game tournament. 

“... Is all of this  _ really _ necessary?” he tried. 

“You’re not sneaking out to take it off,” said Helex firmly, eyes glued to the TV screen. 

“Besides,” added Nickel, “We can’t have you running away when I bring out the matching hats.”

The Pet whined. Tarn only just stopped himself from joining in. 


	2. Chapter 2 - Bonus!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, in coming up for the title of this fic, I realised that scanned to the first line of 'Ding Dong Merrily On High'. And then I wrote a full parody of the song. 
> 
> And then I sat up for half an hour one night at some hellish hour, writing this like a woman possessed.

Normally, Pharma knew what to expect when a furtive knock sounded at the clinic's side door. Comms could be monitored and written notes read; sometimes, the most old-fashioned kind of summons was the securest.

What he expected was not what he got, when he opened the door on this particular evening. 

A scream rose up in his throat and just as soon died - there was no use for it when he was already face to face with the  _ entire DJD _ . Anything save accepting his fate was surely a futile act at this point. Tarn, or Kaon to act as his messenger, was one thing, but if the whole lot of them were here (each carrying a datapad which, Pharma assumed, bore some sort of record for the forthcoming and no doubt grisly proceedings), then clearly something even less pleasant was afoot. 

Then - while Pharma's processor was still gibbering vaguely about fragmented plans to lock down the clinic - the DJD, as one, suddenly burst into song: 

_ "Peace through tyranny on Earth _

_ Tear Autobots asunder! _

_ All ye soldiers, know your worth _

_ And do not think to wander! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror! _

_ "Rogue Decepticons will learn _

_ The punishment for traitors; _

_ Death and torture shall be earned _

_ And meted now or later! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror! _

_ "Pay no matter to the Prime _

_ Nor his deceitful congress; _

_ He will meet his end in time _

_ Cast down in name of progress! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror! _

_ All hail Megatron the conqu’ror!" _

Pharma, now gibbering vaguely aloud, stared around at the company with wild optics. 

"I… wha…?" 

"We're collecting!" said Kaon brightly, producing a bucket from nowhere and shaking it with a wicked grin. "All proceeds to a good cause."

"The Decepticon Propaganda Fund," Tesarus offered by way of explanation - before stumbling sideways as though shoved. 

"Idiot!" whispered Helex. "You're not supposed to call it propaganda when it's  _ our _ side doing it!" 

Vos' contribution was simply a string of raspy hisses, that probably translated to 'pay up, or else'. 

"Well, Doctor?" Tarn said, gesturing to Kaon's collection bucket - which clanked as it was shaken again, and Pharma wasn't even going to ask where they'd got donations from before coming here. "Was our little performance to your satisfaction?" 

Moving in a sort of terrified trance, Pharma dug around in his subspace and scraped up every loose shanix he could find. As he withdrew his hand, the spell seemed to snap, and he flung the coins at the bucket in a flurry of movement, before whirling about and slamming the door shut with a resounding  _ clang _ . 

Hardly daring to breathe, Pharma pressed his ear to the rather flimsy barrier now separating himself from the crack torture squad who appeared to have actually cracked. Hearing only vague murmurs, he crept to a nearby window and peered tentatively through, just in time to see the DJD trudge benignly away through the snow. 

He watched, spark hammering, until they were well and truly out of sight, before sliding listlessly to the floor. It was ten minutes before he felt able to pick himself up again - and go in search of a strong drink. 


End file.
